


Universal Laws and the Truth of Light and Darkness

by bookwormally



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: I honestly have no idea how to tag this, Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers, M/M, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Stream of Consciousness, Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts) Redemption, basically its a lot of poetic fumbling around their dynamic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 09:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18848443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwormally/pseuds/bookwormally
Summary: Light and Darkness are opposed. Where one advances, the other retreats. They exist best in a balance, always tenuously holding the same line from opposite sides.When they cross, when they mix, there is always an explosion.Vanitas and Ventus are opposed, then they aren't. An exploration of their natures, their powers, and what their place is in the universe.





	Universal Laws and the Truth of Light and Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serie11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/gifts).



> Makes IDK noise. I started with a different fill entirely, didn't love it, and then started throwing more words on a page and out came this. I hope it's enjoyable!

_ Fire. Ice. _

_ Earth. Air. _

_ Dark. Light. _

 

Universal laws put these forces in opposition, always pushing and pulling one another. Where one advances, the other retreats. They exist best in a balance, always tenuously holding the same line from opposite sides.

When they cross, when they mix, there is always an explosion.

Xehanort’s clumsy attempts to forge the x-blade through one heart of light and one of darkness could best be described as an explosion. Aqua was the one who saw the results, was the one who helped beat them back, and she describes it as a pillar of light that was ready to tear the world asunder.

Ventus thinks of it as an implosion. Everything was pulled in and then tore itself apart under the pressure. ‘Vanitas’s pressure?’ they’d ask and Ventus would shake his head slowly. It had come from them both, rage and hate that they used to tear each other to pieces. Vanitas may have been Xehanort’s heart of darkness, but he was not the only heart to hate.

Ventus and Vanitas were made to be opposed. Universal law states that they should always be at odds, light and darkness ever warring between their hearts. They are a microcosm of the war always raging through the universe. Darkness and Light fight, sending stars to light the sky and shadows to swallow guttering flames. They are opposed, their very fight one that could cause the destruction of the worlds.

Yet, their balance is easily found when they reach for it instead. Vanitas’s fire spells come out hot enough to boil the air. Ventus whips the formed winds into shape, tumbling their foes back onto the blaze. They both move like the air, darting here and there, disappearing for a moment and then reappearing in a gust that leaves others lying flat. Their other facets are compliments, a shared beginning that left its mark on them, shaped their start and laid the groundwork for the future road.

Where their paths diverged is the line that cannot be crossed. Light and darkness cannot be fully in concert. One may be used, then another. They cannot mix, cannot be forced together without disastrous consequences.

 

“But we come from the same place,” Ventus whispers from their haven in another heart. He touches his fingertips to Vanitas’s and the only reaction is a shiver between them.

“That’s why we’re opposed,” Vanitas whispers back, refusing to pull his hand away even though the feeling is so tender it hurts. “We were never meant to be in two pieces. We are wrong and we pull at each other and the world around us with it.”

Ventus shakes his head. “If it’s wrong, then it wouldn’t feel  _ right _ …” He presses their fingers together until their hands line up. A perfect match and the feeling that fills the air, the tension chokes them both.

Vanitas shakes his head back, but keeps their hands together.

 

_ Darkness. Light. _

_ Light. Darkness. _

 

Ventus opens his eyes and sees the Land of Departure. He opens tired eyes and sees a war he thought long dead.

Light collides with Darkness and the force tears apart a barrier and a thread that seemed stronger than the two of them.

Xehanort’s war goes quickly. Xehanort’s war hardly feels like a war. Does the rest of the universe feel it? Does the rest of the universe drown in shadows?

Ventus doesn’t know. He feels like they’re all drowning in shadows. He feels like this war has lasted forever. He feels alone as the shadows rise and instead of fighting them, he dives in. He extends his hands, becomes a star in the dark, and calls their names.

_ Terra, it’s me and Aqua! Please! _

_ Vanit-. _

_ “What I am is darkness.” _

“No! You’re not. We’re so much more than that.” Ventus knows what it feels like, to be told of your place and your fight. They both believed it once, that they were meant to be at war. No more.

He steps forward, crossing that divide. He grabs Vanitas’s fist and holds it tight. That feeling, neither light nor darkness, soft and sharp and all theirs in the joining rises once they touch. Vanitas stares at him with one gold eye and Ventus stares back with blue colored like thunderheads.

“He broke us into opposing pieces, but we’re not just those pieces. Light fights Darkness. Darkness wants to claim Light. Does this feel like that to you?” Ventus’s eases his grip, letting Vanitas move his hand.

Fingers spread slowly, pressing their hands together. They are still a perfect match. Balance held between them, equal pressure keeping their sides in place.

Vanitas’s hand shakes. Ventus wraps his fingers around his hand.

 

The war ends.

Light overtakes Darkness.

 

In the after, in the muddy messy after where nothing is as clear a victory as they were always told it would be, Ventus is still holding tight to Vanitas’s hand. Darkness gave way to Light, but Light did not erase Darkness. They’re adjusting the balance.

Fairy tales always end with a happily ever after. They never show what comes next.

Laws of the Universe are everlasting, seemingly immutable, but slowly, subtly shifting. The currents of the worlds reshaping the universe into something new.

Vanitas’s whole world is changing again. Memories of the first time return, long days spent in ever-pleasant sunshine on a tiny island. Warm sand, warm sun, warm touches that made him weep from the painful tenderness of them. Those things return, Ventus’s touches return. Light is still overtaking Darkness, but he doesn’t mind.

_ Darkness has always wanted to return to Light. _

 

Sometimes, it’s too much. Vanitas flees it all, finds an abandoned place, a closed place and breathes too quickly. His heart,  _ his heart _ , pounds and the weight of everything chokes him. He was not made for  _ this _ .

But he wants it. He wants Ventus’s fingers on his arm, pulling him into the next bit of madness. He wants careful measurements in the kitchen and the overwhelmingly powerful feeling of watching others enjoy the results of his effort. He wants the tangled knot of his feelings about Aqua and Terra to ease. He wants to believe when Ventus says that he’s family.

Darkness shouldn’t be embraced by Light, but more and more it seems like they are so much more. Ventus right again.

Vanitas’s world falls apart and they rebuild it piece by piece. It is hard, it is painful, it is worth it.

 

_ Darkness, Light, and the in-between. _

 

They don’t have a word for what it is. They’re not what they were told. They are not what an old man said, lost in his ambitions and blind to what he was making when he was breaking them apart. They’re more, they’re indefinable.

Darkness still pools around Vanitas’s hands. He shapes it, directs it, wraps fire and ice in darkness and uses it to tear apart the shadows that threaten the things he cares about. Ventus still lights up battlefields with pillars of light and air. He eliminates the shadows under the brightest novas, stars glowing in his eyes. Healing spells come in the wake of explosions, a gentle touch after the burn.

Life grows in their footsteps, steeped in light and darkness. Sometimes it has flickering red eyes, emotions too strong to be kept under one’s skin. Sometimes it’s the green of ivy plants, vines curling around gentle fingers. Sometimes it’s a cake pulled from the oven, a spatula smacking too many searching hands away from the icing. Sometimes it’s weeping in the night, memories too painful to forget and memories lost forever when they shattered.

 

_ Wind feeds fire. Fire feeds the wind. _

_ Water cuts through the earth. Earth flourishes from the touch of the water. _

_ Light eases back the Darkness. Darkness brightens the Light. _

 

After Xehanort, after the war, after a graveyard, there is peace. There is time to rebuild. There is time to heal.

There will always be shadows. There will always be threats. The next time they come, they meet it side by side.

There has been training alongside healing. New techniques, greater strength. When their foes look upon a boy of light and a boy of darkness with matching grins, their instincts say to run. They do not heed them and thus, they learn their mistake.

Ventus goes first, a star streaking forward so brightly it blinds. He’s quick, he’s acrobatic, and they never notice that Vanitas has already disappeared. Ventus is flash and distraction, his hits fast enough to require full attention. To let one through would be to take half a dozen before getting back a step.

Vanitas is already behind them, slipping around through the shadows Ventus has made. Ventus backs up to catch his breath and Vanitas slams them from behind, throwing them through the air. He’s already there, always behind their foe no matter how they twist. Shadows are everywhere, he is everywhere.

Light and Darkness don’t mix, until they shape the rules into something new.

They are already powerful, skilled and well-trained in ways both ancient and new. They hold the power to reshape places when they twist their forces together. Back to back, Vanitas and Ventus call forth stars and shadows. Arm to arm, light and darkness twists around them, a cyclone of world-rending power.

Darkness wants to return to Light. Light seeks out the places Darkness lives.

They summon a vortex that pulls everything in, arms of darkness and pillars of light that press and press until it all implodes leaving nothing behind.

It’s never easy. It’s exhausting. Light and Dark repel each other even when they want to come together. It’s a last resort, a move of desperation, and always leaves them shakingly empty.

In the after, they press close together. They cling to one another, faces buried in each other’s shoulders as they remember how to breathe. Their hearts race, so terrifyingly, exhilaratingly close to being one again.

Vanitas chokes on a laugh full of tears the first time. Ven wipes them away, ignoring the ones falling from his eyes. 

“It’s a shallow imitation to what we were.”

“Is it?”

Vanitas nods and lets Ventus keep his hand to his cheek. “We were so powerful, so  _ perfect _ before it was ruined.”

“Before we were stopped.”

“So close to perfect,” Vanitas whispers. “It was the first time...I felt right.”

Ventus remembers. He remembers how Vanitas’s heart had pressed to his and the overwhelming feeling-.

 

_ Welcome home. _

 

“But,” Vanitas says in a voice that shakes, that is barely above a whisper. “But now…” He chokes on another laugh, more tears falling. Ventus waits, unable, unwilling to force understanding from Vanitas.

Shaking fingers brush Ventus’s cheek; Vanitas wipes a few of his tears. “Now, I don’t want it. It’s wrong, we’re wrong.”

Ventus shakes his head and turns into those fingers that have learned to be soft. “We’re not wrong. We never were.”

“It always felt right being beside you instead of being one.” Vanitas puts his hand over the one on his cheek. Always a perfect match, but different too. New scars, new tasks change them bit by bit. They are no longer cast-offs, broken pieces from a better whole. They become more distinct with every day; they will always be tied together. “Thank you,” Vanitas whispers.

There are so many things, so heavy, so light. Their past is tangled together, impossible to pull apart and understand separately. Yet, Ventus knows the weight of this, the many moments that have spun  _ this _ moment into possibility. He leans closer to Vanitas, the space between them nonexistent.  _ He wants, he wants, he wants- _ .

Ventus inhales and it shakes and he doesn’t have the words to respond. Vanitas did the hard work, put in the effort. Ventus simply showed him it was possible and tried to be his friend. The world would feel wrong without his darkness in it.

Vanitas saves him from any poorly fumbled words. He closes that last speck of distance, brushing their lips together.

Another implosion, the world shifts around them or maybe just within them, or maybe it was always like this and they didn’t see. 

There is so much in the space between Light and Darkness, so many things waiting to be seen, to be felt, to be understood.

A fraction of them spill between the two of them, curled together on unremarkable ground.

Ventus rests their foreheads together, breathing so much harder than that brief touch requires. Vanitas doesn’t seem to breathe at all, waiting. Words are impossible. Ventus kisses him this time, a language so much harder to misunderstand.

They were only ever just Light and just Darkness for the shortest of times. Their hearts were always reaching for more, joining with others, wanting and full of emotions. The threads of light through Vanitas and the darkness that hides in Ventus’s eyes were always growing. One man wanted to sift them apart, to define them in absolutes.

But the truth of the universe, the law of the worlds, is that hearts are never that simple.

Vanitas and Ventus will always use powers that compliment and oppose one another. They will always have an affinity for the forces that tried to shape them. They will never be defined by those things.

Instead, they will grow. They will live in a universe written off by one heart, but saved and protected by so many more.

 

The shadows have eyes to watch for those who might lose their way.

The bright light of the stars shines down, lighting the way back to the dawn.

 

Ventus and Vanitas lie in a field under a star-strewn sky and know that a law of the universe is this: they’ll always go together.


End file.
